Themes / benefits of aging in place village networks, and the planning of those networks, synthesized from a River West Village committee discussion on March 2, 2015. The central theme and a brief explanation or examples is provided:
1. Mutual help, not just being helped. While we expect that younger village members will be quite helpful to older and disabled members, all of us have skills and talents and can use to help each other age in place, regardless of a given person’s age.
2. Offers the opportunity to preserve one’s role and value in life; contributions are welcomed and appreciated whether one is a volunteer or a member receiving services. We all have skills that we can use to help each other out, and feel good and useful about that, no matter what our age or disability.
3. Preserving family assets: Some people choose to leave their neighborhoods because they can no longer maintain and preserve the value of their homes. Providing volunteer and lower-cost professional services may enable people to maintain their homes and preserve the value of those homes as they age. This may be especially important for lower-income village network members.
4. Social recreational and educational events offered as part of village network services help maintain involvement with people of all ages, decreasing isolation, perhaps decreasing the chance of depression, and perhaps increasing life satisfaction.
5. The definition of what is helpful to someone with a disability or who is aging is defined by those who receive that help; we are a collaborative and participative network of people helping each other, and we collectively decide what assistance we would like to receive.
6. By participating in a village network, seniors and those with disabilities may be able to preserve better family connections by decreasing the burden of care provided by family members.
7. We who are engaged in planning the River West village are future users of the services and have an overriding interest in planning the services that we want to receive. We are taking control of our lives and preparing for our futures.
8. It should be pointed out that while we are engaged in this planning process, we also are meeting some of our present needs for collaboration, participation, and belonging through social activities with other planners and through the planning work itself.
9. Community members of all ages, especially younger individuals, are provided with an opportunity to get to know their neighbors by volunteering to help their neighbors as part of the village network, in ways that work for them. Likewise they become more a part of an integrated community and can help improve their neighborhoods.
10. Participation by all ages as a volunteer in the River West village network allows people of all ages to feel useful and to build connections in their neighborhoods.
11. Providing rides services in the evenings and on weekends allow those older neighbors who can no longer drive at night or who find public transportation infeasible to remain engaged in the social and cultural life of the community and the city.
12. Participating in the planning process and in the associated social events allows one to make new friends as one ages and at a time when existing friends may be going away – moving to assistive facilities, warmer climates, or otherwise become less available.
13. The independence offered by aging in place villages opens up more time and possibilities in later life as our well-being and safety are not solely taken care of by our children according to their capacities and schedules.
14. Building an aging in place village network is actually a lot of fun and provides us with opportunities to learn new things, perhaps offering a way to maintain cognitive health after completing a professional career, for example. Building the River West village network is an exercise in creativity.
15. An operational aging in place village network is controlled by its members and the Governing Council that it will elect. The services offered by the villages by and large therefore are not subject to corporate or for-profit motives, but rather represents a collaborative and anti-materialistic approach.
16. Building a village network provides an opportunity to live one’s values, including the values of service to humanity, spiritual values, ethical values, family values, and to seek meaning in one’s life.
Aging in Community 